Elliot Rodger, the son of an assistant director of the Hunger Games films, is
suspected of shooting dead six people in a rage against being rejected by
women

His father is famous for helping to make The Hunger Games, the futuristic Hollywood blockbuster about teenagers pitted against each other in a fight to the death.

However, Elliot Rodger created his own dystopian drama on Friday when he embarked on a deadly gun rampage, killing six people — just hours after posting a video online declaring war on the comfortable Californian world in which he grew up.

A Santa Barbara County deputy sheriff looks at the black BMW driven by the shooter (AP)

The 22-year-old, who was born in London and moved to America at the age of five, was photographed two years ago on the red carpet for the premiere of The Hunger Games, accompanied by his father, Peter, an assistant director.

Now, he is America’s latest mass murderer after shooting dead half a dozen people in a rolling “drive by” massacre from his black BMW in the Californian college town Isla Vista.

Lamenting that he was still a virgin at 22, he declared in the video: “I will kill every single blonde s--- I see” and blamed women for throwing themselves at “obnoxious brutes” but rejecting him, the “supreme gentleman”.

The scene of the shooting near the campus of the University of Santa Barbara (AP)

The video was apparently recorded a day earlier in the same vehicle that he used for his lethal rampage in the beachside neighbourhood of Santa Barbara, next to the University of California campus.

Rodger grew up surrounded by the trappings of privilege and affluence in California after his father emigrated from Britain.

Peter Rodger is an acclaimed film-maker who moved to Hollywood in 1996 and worked on The Hunger Games franchise.

His stepmother is the actress Soumaya Akaaboune, who appeared in Green Zone in 2010 with Matt Damon and also stars in a French language version of The Real Housewives reality television series.

His late grandfather, George Rodger, was a renowned British war photographer who was the first to capture on film the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen in 1945 and helped found the Magnum picture agency.

But Elliot Rodger has died in notoriety rather than acclaim.

By the time he lay slumped dead in his car from a gunshot wound to the head, he had killed six and wounded 11 more after bringing terror to a student community on a warm Friday night.

Elliot Rodger, left on the red carpet for the Hunger Games, is believed to be the son of assistant director Peter Rodger

The shootings lasted for six minutes as young people milled through the streets on their way to and from restaurants, cafés and bars. Shocked witnesses described the terrifying scenes during a “slow rolling drive-by shooting”.

They told how the gunman, a student at Santa Barbara City College, drew up in his car and spoke to passers-by before picking off targets.

There were nine separate crime scenes by the time he sped off after two “Wild West-style” shoot-outs with sheriff’s deputies.

A semi-automatic handgun was found next to his body, but authorities did not initially disclose whether he was shot by sheriff’s deputies or died from a self-inflicted wound.

Bill Brown, the Santa Barbara sheriff, said: “Written and videotaped evidence” obtained by the authorities “suggests this atrocity was a premeditated mass murder”.

One of the victims was later named by friends and family as Veronica Weiss, 19, who was a keen water polo player.

Another victim was Christopher Martinez. His father, Richard, broke down in tears on Saturday night after railing at America’s lax gun laws.

“Chris died because of the craven irresponsibility of politicians and the National Rifle Association,” he said.

“They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’ right to live. When will this insanity stop?”

At least three of the victims were shot dead at a sorority house for female students at the Santa Barbara city college, witnesses said.

It was a shocking indication of how Rodger targeted women for murder in cold-blood as more videos emerged posted by Rodger online in which he expressed his bitterness about women and his failure to find a girlfriend.

It is understood that three bodies were also found at his apartment block.

Troubling questions were raised last night about whether the US authorities missed crucial warning signs about Rodger’s mental health.

A lawyer for Peter Rodger said that his son, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome as a child, had been receiving psychiatric treatment from several mental health professionals.

His parents contacted police after being alarmed by earlier YouTube videos “regarding suicide and the killing of people”, said Alan Shifman, the attorney.

Elliot Rodger in his black BMW

The police interviewed Rodger and found him to be “polite and kind”, though noted that he had trouble making friends, he said.

A social worker, who worked with Rodger, also contacted police about him last week. Police said they were investigating a video in which a man complained of rejection by women and threatened revenge.

In the most recent recording, Rodger spoke of his plans to wreak murderous revenge for his failure to find a girlfriend. “Tomorrow is the day of retribution,” he declared. “The day in which I will have my revenge against humanity.”

After detailing how “girls have never been attracted to me”, he threatened to “slaughter” members of a college sorority house — a club for female students — and then “take to the streets of Isla Vista and slay every single person I see there”.

In comments interspersed with sickening laughs and chuckles, he said: “I’m 22 years old and I’m still a virgin. I’ve never even kissed a girl.

“College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. But in those years I’ve had to rot in loneliness. It’s not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me. But I will punish you all for it. I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you.

“You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one. The true alpha male. Yes … After I have annihilated every single girl in the sorority house I will take to the streets of Isla Vista and slay every single person I see there.

“All those popular kids who live such lives of hedonistic pleasure.”

His online writings also disclose the full extent of his anger. He was a regular poster to an online message board called PUAhate (for self-styled haters of “pick-up artists”) in which male participants express anger at what they call the “seduction community” and their failure to meet women.

In his personal blog, he expressed his frustrations. “Being lonely in a beautiful place like Santa Barbara is truly a horrible experience,” he wrote.

“As I’ve said many times, a beautiful environment can be the darkest hell if you have to experience it all alone, especially while having to watch other men walking around with their girlfriends. I wish girls were attracted to me. I don’t know why they aren’t.”

Complaining about the “obnoxious people” that he had met at college in Santa Barbara, he added: “I consider myself a sophisticated, polite gentleman, unlike most boys my age.”

He listed his likes included hiking, exercising, watching sunsets, travel, cars and fashion. His Facebook page illustrated his taste for the expensive things in life. Several pictures showed him driving his BMW and he listed luxury clothes and vehicle manufacturers such as Bentley and Aston Martin as his “likes”.

In the manifesto - which was passed to a local television station by an online acquaintance of Rodger - he listed the insults he felt he had suffered in life starting from his frustrations about his time as a boy at a British public school to his anger at his inability to find a girlfriend.

He revealed that he was obsessed with video games but also mentioned how his parents were close to Hollywood heavyweights such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

After Rodger conducted his rampage in Isla Vista, several witnesses described the horrific scenes. Sienna Schwartz, a student, told of her remarkable escape after the gunman approached her and said “Hey, what up?”

He began shooting at her as she walked away. She initially thought that he was firing plastic pellets from a replica gun, but then realised it was for real when several bullets buzzed past her ears.

Another witness said the gunman opened fire on a crowd of people standing in front of a store.

“I heard somewhere between 12 to 20 shots into a group of people who were eating,” said Robert Johnson.

Others took to social media to comment on the carnage.

“I could have easily been dead right now,” said one. “RIP to the girls who got shot and killed by this idiot.”

Michael Vitak, another student, described seeing shots fired from a BMW, killing one woman and critically injuring another.

“I heard shots, screams, pain,” he said.

Another said: “Witnessed a kid get shot and watched him die in front of me while they used my shirt to cover his wounds and resuscitate him.”

Mr Rodger was educated at Maidstone College of Art and he has shot print and commercial campaigns in more than 40 countries. He has won several awards for his films.

His mother, Lois, known as Jinx, the widow of George, lives in Ashford, Kent.